


Out of the Bag

by Azzandra



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Comedy, Fluff, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22335253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: Edelgard, to her surprise, is the last one to find out that Hubert has a pet cat.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 107





	Out of the Bag

It was, of all people, Bernadetta who let this secret slip out.

Her visits to Enbarr were rare enough that Edelgard could do no less than clear her schedule for the afternoon to have tea with her old friend, and Bernadetta, who had grown no less inclined to self-isolation but a great deal more comfortable around Edelgard, had agreed to come.

Having not spoken face to face for years, and exchanged letters only intermittently, most of their conversation was taken up by catching up with the other's life. Edelgard was loathe to speak of court business, so she relayed the various happenings in the lives of former classmates, whereas Bernadetta managed a nervous run-down of affairs in Varley territory, and finally settled into the more comfortable subject of her many hobbies.

She was very much into knitting these days, Bernadetta explained. It was something she could do with her hands while listening to others speak.

While Edelgard pondered the undignified but strangely homey image of Bernadetta knitting while meeting with petitioners, one curious little tidbit pulled Edelgard's attention back to the conversation at hand.

"--Oh, and I need to stop by Hubert's room to drop off the sweaters," Bernadetta mused.

"Is Hubert feeling the chill of the palace?" Edelgard asked, and hid a smile behind her teacup.

Bernadetta laughed in her nervous manner. "They're not for him, they're for his cat."

For a moment, Edelgard thought she must have misheard.

"I'm sorry, Bernadetta, I thought you just said you're dropping off sweaters for Hubert's cat."

Bernadetta was looking at her weirdly now, as if Edelgard was somehow the one spouting nonsense.

"Um... yeah," Bernadetta said. "I guess he never mentioned it, but I make little sweaters for her, s-so she doesn't get cold in the winter."

"You mean to say Hubert really does have a cat?" Edelgard set her teacup down with a rattling clink.

Bernadetta flinched, wrung her fingers, but she did not wilt as she once might have.

"I'm sorry," she squeaked in apology, "I thought you knew!"

* * *

Bernadetta, of course, was not to blame. She was not wrong in assuming that Edelgard might have known about Hubert acquiring a pet, because it was the kind of detail Edelgard herself assumed she would know about him.

It was only, well... How had she not heard this from Hubert? How was an entire pet something he chose not to share with her? Who else knew about this while Edelgard did not?

So consumed she was by this question, that Edelgard found herself paying absolutely no attention through the meeting she had scheduled after tea with Bernadetta. Whatever they talked about, it washed over her without making an impression, and it was a rare occasion indeed that in a meeting between the Emperor and the Minister of Military Affairs, it was Edelgard who was the more distracted of the two.

Finally, unable to keep her peace, Edelgard blurted out,

"Did you know Hubert has a cat?"

Caspar trailed off in the middle of a sentence, and for a moment, Edelgard thought she had managed to shock someone as much as she herself had been when she learned of this.

"Uh, yeah," Caspar replied, bewildered, though not at the information she'd just imparted. He gave a bemused little shrug. "He's had her for years. Didn't you know?"

She did not, and she lapsed into stunned silence at the realization that Caspar not only knew, but had apparently known for so long that the novelty had worn off.

* * *

What Edelgard was not privy to, of course, was that the first time Caspar had stumbled upon this piece of information, he had burst into Linhardt's study in a flurry of excitement.

"Did you know," Caspar had asked in a shout, because experience told him Linhardt would be asleep, "that Hubert has a cat?"

Linhardt had lifted his head from his desk, rubbed his eyes, and given a yawn before deigning to reply.

"That's why you woke me up?" Linhardt had sighed, very much put-upon. "Yes, he's had it for a while now."

Caspar's mouth fell open with an offended gasp.

"What the heck, man! How come you always have all the best gossip before me? You're asleep most of the time!"

"And yet," Linhardt replied, "I still have people bursting into my study and shouting random trivia to me about our mutual acquaintances. Fancy that."

So, Caspar had kept his mouth mostly shut about it after that, not wanting to reveal himself as out of the loop. Hubert would probably kill him if he shot his mouth off about the cat, anyway. And Linhardt would probably hear the news first, the well-informed dastard.

* * *

"Did you know Hubert has a cat?" Edelgard asked Dorothea when next they met.

She had yet to confront Hubert about it, but only because she had to fight off the dreadful suspicion that she was the last to find out about it. So far, she had not been successful in this endeavor.

"Oh, has he told you about her?" Dorothea asked, and Edelgard felt her heart sink. 

"No! I can't believe this. Who told _you_?"

"Ferdie let it slip, I'm afraid," Dorothea answered, patting Edelgard's hand with entirely too much sympathy. 

"Of course _he_ knows," Edelgard sighed. For once, she missed that Ferdinand was no longer as competitive as he had been in school, because if he had tried to rub her face in finding out about Hubert's cat first, at least Edelgard would have learned about it sooner. "If I write to Mercedes, will I discover she knew about it too?"

"Probably not," Dorothea shrugged, then considered. "Unless her brother told her."

"Unbelievable," Edelgard declared, and she nearly threw her hands up in surrender by this point. 

She was almost afraid to ask if Petra knew as well, because she could not deal with the possibility that word of Hubert's cat had gotten to Brigid before even reaching Edelgard.

"I need to meet this cat," Edelgard decided.

* * *

It was the principle of the thing, really. Hubert was free to have a pet if he wanted one, of course, and Edelgard was not opposed to him having some company in his free time. Despite the intimidating reputation Hubert liked to foster, Edelgard knew quite well he was not inclined to hurting animals.

But how had everyone but Edelgard known about this first?

She could hardly imagine Hubert with a cat curled up in his lap. He had never shown much interest in cats at all--the monastery had been crawling with the creatures, and not once had Hubert stopped to pet one.

...Did she know Hubert so little?

So, in order to give him no quarter for retreat, Edelgard simply showed up at his door one evening. 

Hubert's face was already impassive as he opened the door, but settled into a very different stillness as he laid his eyes on her.

"Your Majesty," he drawled, slipping the dagger he had palmed back in its sheath. "How may I assist?"

"I want to see your cat," Edelgard declared with no preamble.

Hubert stared for a beat, apparently taken aback. He rallied admirably, however, inclining his head and moving aside to let her pass through the door.

"Whatever Your Majesty wishes," he said, opening the door wider.

Edelgard, now starting to feel ridiculous for simply showing up at a man's door demanding to see his cat, swept in with all the dignity of an Emperor and all the anticipatory glee of a child on their birthday.

Hubert's room was as stark and orderly as expected--perhaps she expected cat trees and little bell toys littered about, but that would hardly have been Hubert's style. She did not know what to expect or where to look, though she hoped Hubert wouldn't just let her have to start searching under furniture, but a bit of motion drew Edelgard's eye to one of the armchairs in front of the crackling fireplace.

It surely had to be a cat, if only because Edelgard did not expect any other creature there, but the animal curled up in the armchair was completely devoid of fur. What it had instead was s surplus of wrinkles, and in combination with its narrowed gaze, this gave it a distinctly scowling expression.

"This is it?" Edelgard asked, approaching cautiously. The cat kept its yellow eyes on Edelgard, radiating an air of contempt that was downright impressive. On the other hand, perhaps it now made perfect sense that Hubert had a cat like this. "Is it, ah..."

"It is not ill," Hubert answered, with the tired air of someone who had had to field this very question too many times. "It's a variety of hairless cat from Almyra, apparently. A breeder in the former Leicester Alliance territory specializes in them. They are popular with those who have allergies. Or don't tolerate cat hair on their clothing." Hubert brushed off his sleeve and sniffed primly at the though of cat hair on all his impeccable black suits.

"Where did you even get it from?" Edelgard asked, taking off her glove to extend her hand to the cat. It sniffed her fingers, but did not hiss or flatten its ears back the way some of the feral cats at the monastery would do when they found someone's presence intolerable.

"Do you remember Countess Birya?"

Of course she did. Countess Birya had been a fixture at court since Edelgard had been born, and had also been senile for just as long. She used to give Edelgard stale hard candies every time they crossed paths, even after Edelgard had been crowned--not that the elderly countess seemed to be aware of who was on the throne much in those day. She also thought Hubert was her nephew Reginald, who had died some thirty years prior. An inconvenient state of affairs, but mostly for Hubert, whose cheeks she would try to pinch on occasion.

"She gave you her cat?" Edelgard asked, turning to look at Hubert.

His mouth twisted in dismay.

"Technically, she bequeathed her cat to her nephew to care for after her death," Hubert said. "But since she was too addled to remember who she meant and she had no other family, I took responsibility for the cat."

"What is its name?" Edelgard asked next.

"...Princess," Hubert admitted reluctantly.

Edelgard did not smile, because Hubert already looked uncomfortable with the admission. But she turned back to the cat-- _Princess_ \--and attempted to pet her. The cat deigned to allow it, and Edelgard ran the backs of her knuckles over the cat's head. The texture was quite pleasant, actually.

"Hubert," Edelgard said, a thought occurring, "last year, when you were talking to Ferdinand and you told him 'I don't give my lady fish, it would be unfortunate that she choke on a fish bone'--"

Hubert didn't quite groan, but he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Yes," he confirmed with a sigh, "I was talking about the cat."

"You call her 'my lady'--"

"Yes, Your Majesty--"

"Because her name is Princess and--"

"Yes. Yes, Your Majesty." Hubert was now trying to sound annoyed, but mostly he managed to look mortified. "I will cease at once if you find it bothersome."

"No at all," Edelgard shrugged, just as Princess began purring. "I am hardly a jealous monarch."

**Author's Note:**

> Someone shared some pics of a sphinx cat on the rarepair server and someone else suggested this would be Hubert's cat, and YOU KNOW WHAT? Absolutely. I'm running with that. Thanks, guys, this has been a great mental image to ponder.


End file.
